


I can save my sleeping for another empty night

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: We've not yet lost all our graces [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 05:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Her daughter is barely her daughter at all, by the time of her fifth birthday. Alayne has Petyr’s narrow features and his clever smile and his watchful gaze and his dark hair, and Lysa worries that Alayne also has Petyr’s meanness. Cat worries the same, she knows, because Cat is never so careful of little Robb as when Alayne is about.





	I can save my sleeping for another empty night

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Red Light_ by the Regrettes.

Lysa has Alayne when she’s sixteen, and never regrets it.

Well, that’s not entirely true. She regrets it very much when she’s taking her A-Levels and has to balance studying with a screaming, colicky baby, and she regrets it whenever Dad sighs in her general direction, but she manages. Cat helps when she can, and Uncle Bryn is a godsend, he really is, and she works very hard not to regret Alayne.

Moving in with Uncle Bryn when she goes to college makes that easier. Not  _ easy,  _ never that, but easier, because he not only helps with night feeding but also pays half of all babysitting fees, and because he can make his own hours, he leaves it so they don’t need the childminder very much at all.

Sometimes, Lysa wishes she could claim Bryn as her dad. She doesn’t really regret that, either.

 

* * *

Alayne has eyes the same colour as Lysa’s own, but that’s where the resemblance ends. 

Her daughter is barely her daughter at all, by the time of her fifth birthday. Alayne has Petyr’s narrow features and his clever smile and his watchful gaze and his dark hair, and Lysa worries that Alayne also has Petyr’s meanness. Cat worries the same, she knows, because Cat is never so careful of little Robb as when Alayne is about.

“No child support this month either?” Cat asks, because Alayne threw a tantrum just this morning over getting a pink car for her Barbie dolls, rather than the more expensive red one. Cat wraps an arm over Lysa’s shoulders and holds on, and Lysa’s glad that Bryn made them sit down and talk it all out before Cat’s wedding, because she isn’t sure she’d cope without Cat.

 

* * *

When Alayne is six, she comes down with a nasty stomach infection, and Lysa puts on her big girl pants and rings Petyr. She has to go through about twenty people to get his number, and even then, she only gets his  _ secretary _ , who speaks in the breathy sort of voice that implies nudity until she realises that Lysa’s in no way interested in her scantily clad goods.

Petyr always did like the page three girls more than Dad approved of. Makes sense he’d hire one to answer his phone.

“What is it?” he demands when finally she gets to speak to  _ him.  _ “I’m a busy man, Lysa, if this is about child support  _ again,  _ then you know to go through my solicitor-”

“Alayne is in hospital,” she says. “St. Jude’s, fourth floor. Thought you might want to know.”

Petyr turns up while Lysa’s in the canteen downstairs getting a cuppa to see her through another long night, and from then on, Alayne has a favourite parent.

It was never Lysa to begin with, but now she’s faced with less indifference and more outright war.

 

* * *

Lysa meets Jon when Alayne is nine. He’s older than her, a  _ lot  _ older than her, she later finds out, but he has calm brown eyes and listens to her when she speaks, which is something that’s always been in short supply.

He’s a High Court judge, and she meets him when hers is the only table with an empty chair in a tiny smudge of a café that charges ten prices for an espresso, between two cases she’s clerking on at the Old Bailey - he’s throwing an eye on one of them as a favour for Justice Royce, an old friend from Oxford, and decided he needed coffee to get him through the next three hours of depositions.

He’s quiet, with gentle hands that he keeps folded atop his neatly crossed knees in a reassuringly non-threatening way, and he’s the first man Lysa’s not felt odd around in years, except Uncle Bryn and Cat’s Ned. 

He asks if she has a business card. No one else has ever asked that, so the little case of cards Edmure had printed for her when she graduated LSE has remained full all this time.

Jon Arryn smiles when she presses her card into his hand, and promises to call her before the end of the week. She thinks nothing more of it, until her phone rings on Thursday evening and he asks if she’d like to go to dinner on Saturday night.

 

* * *

Alayne hates Jon, of course. Lysa’s not sure if that’s Petyr’s doing or not, but it’s really not going to matter. Jon’s resigned to it - he says it’s probably his own fault, he’s only ever had to handle his nephew, now a man Lysa’s own age, and doesn’t remember what to do with children, but Lysa knows better. Jon’s never anything but kind and interested in Alayne, but Alayne has far more of her father in her than Lysa would like.

 

* * *

Cat’s pregnant under her navy-blue bridesmaid’s dress, and whatever she’s whispering to Alayne as she ties a silvery ribbon into her hair seems to be working - Alayne’s been an absolute pissmire all week, throwing screaming tantrums totally unworthy of a nine year old, but Cat’s got a sweeter way with kids than Lysa’s managed to cultivate with Petyr’s daughter. 

“Tell your mum how she looks,” Cat says, and Lysa staggers when Alayne crashes into her, skinny arms tight around her waist. 

“Dad says you’ll have babies with Jon and you won’t want me anymore,” Alayne grumbles, looking up through her dark lashes. “But I don’t think that’s true, not anymore, and you look really nice, Mum.”

Lysa kisses Alayne’s hair, winks her thanks to Cat, and straightens up in time for Uncle Bryn to walk in, tapping his watch.

“I know it’s the bride’s job to be late,” he says, “but I think we’d best get a move on, don’t you think?”

Alayne walks up to the altar with a spring in her step, and Jon takes Lysa’s hand gently, carefully, from Bryn. Out of the corner of her eye, Lysa can see the wary way Alayne watches Jon, and wonders if she hasn’t been more than a little unfair. Alayne is only a little girl, and this  _ has _ been a huge change.

* * *

 

 

Alayne is nearly eleven when Robin is born, and she tucks herself right under Jon’s arm to get a good look at her new baby brother after Petyr drops her off at the hospital.

“He’s got your nose, Jon,” she says, “but I think he has Mum’s eyes, like I do.”

Alayne’s eyes are blue, but sharp. Lysa’s clever, but she’s never been sharp, and she wishes just a little that Alayne would soften ever so slightly.

  
  



End file.
